SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR PAGE

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Thank You ... go's out to Calvin Casting, at Home Town Cable for this video.

​Fr. Jack Downs talks about forgiveness, 2016

Sometimes I have gone into a buffet restaurant and found that the desserts are the first dishes in the line. It is possible to have dinner backwards, starting with the dessert, and then eating the appetizer, salad and dinner. You get to eat all the food, but I think it is more fulfilling to enjoy each part of the meal in its proper order.

Sometimes we have the same temptation with Christmas. Our society tends to skip Advent altogether and starts celebrating Christmas before Thanksgiving. Then it’s all packed up and stored away by New Year’s Day. Consider this year returning to the original practice of embracing the whole Christmas cycle – the period that includes Advent, Christmas and Epiphany. The preparation (Advent) comes first, then comes the celebration extending a few weeks after Christmas Day.

During Advent, the Church draws our attention to the most basic reality of our life: eternal salvation in Jesus Christ. Advent draws our minds and hearts to the truth that God the Son has been made man, has taken our human nature in order to: 1) save us from our sins and eternal death, and 2) win for us the inheritance of true sons and daughters of God, that is, the inheritance of eternal life.

The reality that inspires our wonder during Advent is the coming of Jesus Christ, God the Son, incarnate into the world. The reality is greater than we can fully understand. Advent keeps our eyes fixed on the truth that is basic to our everyday life in Christ Jesus, the truth that God the Son has come into the world and remains with us always in the Church, above all, in the sacraments.

Advent is a Eucharistic season when we recall with wonder Christ’s coming into the world by His birth of Mary at Bethlehem; our hearts understand the oneness of the manger in which the Blessed Virgin Mary placed her Infant Son to rest, with the altar upon which Our Lord comes to be with us and the Tabernacle in which he remains with us always. The glorious Body and Blood of Christ, which we receive in Holy Communion and adore in the Blessed Sacrament, first came into being in the womb of Mary and was first visible to the world in the manger at Bethlehem. Even as the neighborhood shepherds and kings from various parts of the inhabited world came to worship the Infant Jesus at His birth, so we too, hasten to visit and adore Our Lord Jesus really present with us in the Most Blessed Sacrament. We should come before His Eucharistic Presence with the wonder of those who first behold the Savior at His birth.

So often, I am filled with deep gratitude for the ways in which Our Lord instructs our minds and captures our hearts throughout the days of our life. Our life in the Church is truly life in Christ, that is, bearing Christ’s call and following Him along the daily path which brings us home to Heaven. Through the observance of Advent, we recognize more clearly Christ’s presence in our midst and His calling us to follow Him, to be one with Him.

May the season of Advent be strong in grace for you, filling you with wonder and gratitude before the mystery of God’s great love of you in Jesus Christ.

Father Jack Downs,

Spiritual Director,

Our Lady of the Adirondacks House of Prayer

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